Reply to We need to build more: gentrification caused by blocking housing construction (not the opposite!)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Previous post is a non-DC person, obviously.  It’s ok, you can stay in your red area.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Rather - it's already unaffordable except for the very rich.  To fix that, we need to make it easier for mid-level developers to build.  Because in the current environment where housing is so scarce, only luxury developers can make the effort to get through zoning hurdles to build.[/quote]

We are involved with several developments in DC. The amount bureaucratic cost and time needed to proceed on a project makes it cost effective only if the resulting units are sold/rented at ”luxury" level prices. I don't pretend to know what he right balance, is but if DC or any other city wants lower cost housing units, they have the lower the barrier to entry for developers. Competition = lower prices. As is, our projects are run by a large team of experienced managers and contractors. This team is very expensive to hire and retain. Their purpose is not to build a good quality structure - we build similar quality buildings elsewhere without needing this much administrative fire power. This situation benefits no one. Even the DC employees themselves don't enjoy the roadblocks they are required to erect. [/quote]

This is totally the problem.  [b]Zoning laws are so restrictive that they basicallly make it illegal to build new housing unless you have a LOT of money to spend on getting past zoning hurdles[/b].

The whole YIMBY movement is trying to fix zoning law to allow building more housing.[/quote]

This. I know people who work in housing development in DC and are trying to provide opportunities for POC and smaller developers to gain access to properties and funding in the city. It's incredibly hard, and there are a series of structural barriers that work together to make it difficult. And DC politics is structured around these binaries (black versus white, poor versus UMC, progressives versus capitalists) but good policy doesn't break down along those lines that cleanly. I'm a hardcore progressive and have learned that I sometimes need to go hard in support of development because the alternative isn't "no development". It's just richer, whiter, more gentrified development. So you need to fight hard for more affordable housing, more family housing, more housing built by local developers and especially local POC. Because if you fight that stuff, all you've done is kick the can down the road, and it will be picked up by one of the huge national or regional developers who will turn it into luxury condos for young urban professionals, rent their commercial space to banks and chains, and take all their profits out of DC.

OP is right -- we have to build much, much more. So why not find ways to do it so that the money stays in DC and it benefits actual residents? There are organizations working on this, but we have to support them. The knee-jerk response to oppose all development won't get us anywhere, unless you love $3500/mo one-bedroom condos and Amazon and bars that sell $22 cocktails, and don't care about families or affordability or community.[/quote]

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